Aunt Clara

by Noel Streatfeild

  “You’re Mr. Simon Hilton. We never guessed you were him.”

  Bess’s eyes were thoughtful. So Julie and Andrew did know there had been a Mr. Simon Hilton. Sam could have shaken Julie, speaking out of turn like that. Not but what it was Miss Hilton’s fault, she had distinctly said “our supper”; she didn’t seem the kind of lady for that kind of thing, and he would have thought she was past it, but you never knew. Henry struggled not to laugh; he might be getting on but he hardly looked like Miss Clara’s uncle. He must tell Nobby that one, he wouldn’t half scream. Charles’s mind jumped to what Julie thought, and he was enraptured. What a picture I Clara was unworried by Julie’s mistake.

  “No, dear, that’s not my Uncle Simon, he’s dead. That’s Henry who lives with me to look after me.”

  Henry did wish Miss Clara would be more careful how she put things.

  “What Miss Clara means is it was me looked after the old gentleman till ’e was took, and in ’is will ’e left me money and wished I’d stop on to keep an eye on ’er. You see, I did everythin’ for ’im, collectin’ rents and that.”

  Clara appeared to give her attention to helping herself to salad, while she decided what it would be best to say next. It was clear from Julie’s words that she had heard of a Simon Hilton. If that was so it was doubtful if the children believed it was she who had known their mother. She turned to Julie.

  “Tell me what you know about my uncle.”

  Charles saw from Bess’s face how she disliked that question; as well, from every angle, he felt it had better not be asked. Julie seemed the sort of girl who blurted out what came into her head. If she said she had heard Simon Hilton might be their father, there would be no holding Miss Hilton, she would be sure to make the most unwise promises. The thought of how foolish a statement Clara could make in front of all those witnesses made him look for a means to change the conversation. He was sitting next to Julie, her hand was about to pick up her fork, he put his over it and felt her fingers, and asked in a voice calculated to draw attention to his words and away from what had been said, whether especially strong muscles were needed for her job.

  Andrew was sitting between Bess and Clara. Bess followed Charles’s effort to change the conversation. She knew Andrew, being such a dreamer, was unlikely to have heard what was said. She gave his arm a poke.

  “Wake up, Andrew. Tell Miss Hilton about your training and how strong you have to be, and of that offer you had Christmas time.”

  Henry felt glad that Charles was with them; that was the sort of silly question Miss Clara would ask. He pointed his knife at Andrew.

  “That’s right, you tell ’er ’ow it’s done. Proper turned me over seein’ you nippin’ about up there.”

  Sam was proud of Andrew. He had natural gifts, but they no had been fostered by careful training. Season after season Sam had engaged aerial acts, often more expensive than he liked, so that the artists could give Andrew lessons. On the ground he knew Andrew did not seem much, boys of sixteen were often shy, and there were times when, if you didn’t know Andrew, you might think he was lacking in wits, but in the air he was wonderful. Sam had not the words to say what Andrew in the air meant to him. He would never get his tongue round “poetry of motion,” or “inspired,” but watching Andrew working he knew complete artistic satisfaction. He did not use a microphone in the ring, he had a fine voice to roar out “My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen . . .” He used it now to get Andrew started to talk of his work; once over the tongue-tied stage he would do all right, for enthusiasm for his work would make him forget himself.

  “Andrew came to us when he was only a nipper, Miss Hilton; they had been tenting with their mother, so they’d picked up a bit, but not regular, you understand. The first proper lessons Andrew had was from a Swede. Andrew, tell Miss Hilton about Sven.”

  Andrew thought back. He saw himself and Julie very small beside the blond Sven. He could hear again Sven’s voice as he said, “First we must see every muscle does as he is told; when all muscles obey, then we can begin to work.” His shyness dropped from him, eagerness to speak of the great Sven took its place.

  Henry and Clara listened to Andrew, Bess and Sam waited to prompt him if he should become self-conscious; no one was watching Julie and Charles. Julie was a gauche eighteen; she had grown up with Borthwick’s, had her behind slapped, her pigtails pulled, and been hunted off to school by all Sam’s permanent staff. As she grew up many eyes turned to look after her as she passed to and fro, and many thoughts lingered on her, for she had a beautiful body; but Bess was strict about behaviour, and nobody liked to think what she would do if anyone touched Julie. Moreover Julie had an elusive wild-flower quality which quelled ideas of snatched pleasures in dark corners. When her hand was held by Charles it trembled and fluttered as if he held a scared bird. After a second she snatched it away, and looked up at him.

  “Why did you do that?”

  Charles was unused to young women thinking anything of a held hand.

  “I was only interested. I say, what luck having those brown eyes! Brown eyes and fair hair are a bit of all right.”

  Julie felt he was teasing her, but she was more at ease.

  “You can see it’s dyed. Uncle Sam and Aunt Bess like fair hair for show business. You held my hand so that I shouldn’t answer Mrs. Hilton, didn’t you? Why?”

  “It’s Miss Hilton. She’s quite a woman, but she needs looking after.”

  Julie relaxed, for she liked plain speaking.

  “I told Andrew she would. Of course we know she wasn’t a friend of our mother’s; the Mr. Simon Hilton who is dead was on the list mother left of people who could help us.” She looked round to see Sam and Bess were not listening; although both were attending to what Andrew was saying she dropped her voice. “He was high up on the list, so we guessed he was one of the men who had been told he was our father. We can’t do much for Miss Hilton, because we haven’t much, but as her uncle knew our father we’ll help . . .”

  Charles warmed to Julie.

  “Was it because you thought Miss Hilton had come for help you looked so cross when you sat down?”

  Julie felt increasingly at ease with Charles.

  “Yes. Andrew doesn’t care about anything but his work, he’d give away all our savings, but I can’t because I haven’t got the gift.”

  Charles, remembering what Sam had said, did not answer that.

  “He seems brilliant.”

  “He is. Of course our mother was good . . .” once more Julie looked cautiously round before she whispered, “but we think his father was an American who worked with mother. We never saw him because he broke up the act when Andrew was coming, and when he was working in Zurich he was killed, but people say he was one of the best trapeze artists there ever was.”

  Charles followed Julie’s example and dropped his voice.

  “Was his name Marquis?”

  “No, that was my father.”

  “Was your father a trapeze artist?”

  Julie smiled. It was the first smile Charles had seen on her face except the synthetic one she put on when she bowed to her audience. It was a charming smile; it lit up her face as if the sun had appeared on a grey day. As well there was a slight flush on her cheeks. Her whisper was embarrassed.

  “You’ll laugh when I tell you, and it is funny. Mother always told me my father was a marquis. She said she met him in Paris when she was working there, but I think she made it up; she was always making things up like telling her uncle . . .” Julie made a tiny motion with one finger to indicate Clara, “that he was our father.”

  “I don’t see why your father couldn’t have been a marquis. France is stuffed with aristocratic types.”

  Julie sighed.

  “I’d like to think that, but the more I look at myself the less blue blood I see. When we were on the road to Maidstone in August I saw a pub called ‘The Marquis of Granby.’ I dare say I happened there, it’s more likely.”

  Charles laughed. />
  “You are a scream. If you want to know, I think you might well be partly French, and oozing with blue blood. In fact I’m sure you must be; only a girl oozing with noblesse oblige and all that would think she had to help the niece of an old man she never met, who it is most unlikely was her father, as he only died the other day and he was eighty.”

  “I don’t know what noblesse means, was it French you spoke? But if she . . .” there was another tiny gesture, “has nothing, and the uncle was a friend of our mother’s, it’s right we should help, for Mother is sure to have had a lot of money from him, she always did.”

  Julie had finished eating. Her hands were in her lap. Charles laid his hand over them, and though again they quivered Julie did not this time draw them away.

  “You’re pretty nice. I’m going to trust you. Miss Hilton came to offer to help you.”

  Julie’s eyes widened.

  “Us! Why? Why should we want help?”

  “You don’t. But that’s why she came. To find out if you did.”

  Clara was still hanging on Andrew’s story, which was to her like a fairy tale. Julie glanced at her, then turned back to Charles.

  “That was very good of her. I should think she is very good.”

  “She is. So good she’s going to be disappointed she can’t help you.” Charles felt Julie was about to move her hands. Casually, as though he had been about to do so anyway, he took his hand away. As he did so he thought it would be nice to see her again. She was a funny girl, not a bit his type, but all the same he would like to have another look at her. An idea came to him, and as he mentioned it he saw how admirable it was. It would suit Clara and as well it would suit him. “If your blue blood is telling you to be nice to Miss Hilton, why don’t you ask her if you and Andrew could come and stay with her? You must get a holiday sometime.”

  Julie looked scared.

  “Would she like that? Andrew and I have never stayed with anyone.”

  “She’d adore it. It won’t be grand. There’s not much room, it would mean more or less camping I think.”

  “Would you be there?”

  “Not in the house, Henry looks after her, but I’ll see you. You’ll find me popping up like a cork.”

  It was evidently a great decision for Julie to make.

  “We have a little time when tenting is finished . . . Uncle Sam goes to winter quarters, but he has an engagement for Popeye our lion with a circus in Brighton . . . it could be managed if it’ll really please her.”

  Charles spoke with immense authority.

  “It will please her. Before we leave we’ll fix it up.”

  * * * * *

  Clara spent her Sundays at the mission. She enjoyed the services and meeting old friends. The first Sunday after she came to live in Simon’s flat she had tried to persuade Henry to come with her. Henry had refused.

  “No, Miss Clara, I likes to enjoy me Sundays in me own way. I wouldn’t fancy that mission, straight I wouldn’t.”

  One Sunday in each month they planned to spend together, visiting Simon’s grave. Clara was an anxiety to Henry, but there were qualities in her which he liked, her respect for graves was one. The Sunday following their visit to the circus they decided to make a Cemetery Sunday. It was the end of October, so the wreath was chrysanthemums. Brilliant weather had given summer warmth to the last weeks, but that Sunday was autumnal. Dying leaves scratched along the pavements blown by a chilly wind, and the decaying autumnal smell, together with the sharp scent from the chrysanthemums, blew up Clara’s and Henry’s nostrils, and turned their conversation to graves, which made the walk to the bus stop pleasant for both. Clara told Henry exactly what the stones on her father’s and mother’s graves were like, what flowers she had planted round them and how, though she lived too far away now to visit them herself, she arranged for holly wreaths at Christmas, daffodils at Easter and roses on their birthdays. Henry said “and very nice too,” and told Clara about the graves of his family, and of the difficulties of keeping them looking nice.

  “Somethin’ chronic it is, people are that dishonest you wouldn’t believe when it comes to pots. Put a jam-pot down ’alf a cock linnet and before you can say ‘Bob’s your uncle’ someone’s lifted it. You wouldn’t think, would you, Miss Clara, there could be people sunk so low they’d rob a cemetery?”

  Clara made distressed sympathetic noises. Pots, she was afraid, were a great temptation to those who lived near a cemetery; of course they shouldn’t be, but when there were cheap oranges about and you had the sugar, and wanted to make marmalade . . . Her voice tailed away. She had learned at the mission of many little things which, before she went to the mission, were clearly wrong, but with more understanding of other people’s problems, though not becoming right exactly, belonged more nearly to the childish word “naughty.” She could see both points of view so clearly; Henry’s very proper anger at a robbed grave, and the harassed mother held up in her marmalade making for the want of a couple of jam-pots. She changed the subject to one about which she had been giving much thought.

  “Of course it’s too soon yet, Henry, but I want to have all the arrangements made for a stone for Mr. Hilton’s grave. I shall order it, and Mr. Willis is arranging to keep the money on one side to pay for it. What is troubling me is what would the dear old man have liked. I know he was not a churchman in the ordinary sense of the word, but he led a Christian life, and I feel his generosity and consideration, as shown in his will, should be in some way remembered; did he ever mention any text or verse he was fond of?”

  Henry’s face took on a look which Simon had known well. “Take that damn disobligin’ look off your face.” Disobliging was the wrong word, the look was a shutter between Henry and those who wished to nose into matters which were not their concern. Not that he believed Clara’s question came from nosiness, he knew it did not, but her constant appeals to him for advice as to whether Simon would have considered this or that right or wrong embarrassed him. He could never get over the feeling that the old man was somewhere around listening, a wicked gleam in his eyes. He could almost hear him say, “What was that she was askin’ about me?” Even in the street he could catch Simon’s laughter. His ears carried the sound of that low rumble, and he could recall exactly the tone and voice in which Simon had said, “How d’you know it’s about nothin’? Wait and see.” The more Henry knew of Clara the less he liked to think of that laugh and what it had meant. For that was the day Simon had planned his will, and though Henry felt it was no laughing matter he knew now why the old man thought it funny and said, “Wait and see.” But much as he was growing to like and respect Clara he could not bring himself to tell her the truth. For one thing the truth was not easy to tell; he had been fond of the old man, there had been a lot to like in him but the things he liked about him were not the sort to appeal to Miss Clara, and just telling her that the will had been his best joke, and that he had been laughing up to the last minute, was only half true, and it would upset Miss Clara if she believed it, which more than likely she wouldn’t, and it wouldn’t be fair to the old man.

  “’e wasn’t much of a one for texts or that, ’e was never one for troublin’ much about graves.”

  Clara heard the reticence in Henry’s voice, and thought she understood it. Dear Henry, he was so loyal he would not like to remember faults, and to him not visiting graves was a fault.

  “You are thinking he never visited my father’s, his only brother’s grave, but that was understandable. It was during the war he died, remember, and we were asked not to travel unnecessarily, and there were plenty of us children to see to everything. I feel sure he took a great interest in the stone that was chosen, and the words we selected; I expect he talked it all over with my brother George, or perhaps my clergyman brother Maurice.”

  Henry thought how it would surprise Miss Clara if she knew what her uncle had thought of her brothers, but the mention of them turned his mind to something he had overlooked. Gravestones were not put up to ple
ase the dead, but to show the neighbours you were doing all right, and knew the way to behave. Miss Clara was not one to notice what others thought about her, but it would be nice if she could manage a really showy stone, so the relatives couldn’t say she had been mean.

  “I see a lovely stone once. Great big angel it was, with a finger pointin’ up showin’ the way like.”

  Clara did not admire angel tombstones, but if Henry did she was prepared to consider it.

  “It depends on money. There is not a great deal, you know, and it’s only mine in trust, I have such a lot of people to look after.”

  They had reached the bus stop. Henry glanced at the queue to be sure they were not overheard.

  “’ow often am I to tell you you don’t want to keep ‘arpin’ on lookin’ after people that are all right as they are, you don’t want to give ’em ideas. You look at the Marquis kids. They didn’t want anythin’.”

  Clara did not care who was listening.

  “I’m glad you mentioned the Marquis children, Henry. Do you realise they are coming to us in about three weeks?”

  Henry had thought the matter over, but he waited until they were seated in the bus before he answered.

  “That’s right. I thought Julie could ’ave me bedroom, and I’d doss down with young Andrew in the front room, ’ave to get a coupl’a beds, but it’ll be easy fixed.”

  Clara beamed.

  “You are kind, Henry. I never thought of your bedroom. I was thinking of Julie sharing with me, and I’m such a staid old thing, she might be shy. But it wasn’t the bedrooms I wanted to speak to you about. You mustn’t misunderstand what I am going to say. I am very lucky in my family, so many nephews and nieces and so affectionate and kind, but I don’t want any of them to know I am having the Marquis children to stay. You see, I don’t look on Mr. Hilton’s flat as mine. It’s your home too, he said so in his wishes, and though Mr. Willis says it’s very unlikely he’ll trace them, there are my uncle’s other friends and he might find one who is in want.” Henry thought of the Lilys, Roses, Victorias, Daisys, and Nellies, and a low whistle escaped him. Clara did not notice, but went on: “Then there’s Mrs. Gladys Smith . . .”